Developer Surprised By Opposition To Presidents' Big Heads

Radar Interview

When Williamsburg developer Everette Newman came forward with the idea of creating Presidents Park in northern York County, he had no idea he would soon be mired in controversy.

After all, Newman had developed Water Country years earlier, and it has since been embraced so warmly by the community that Colonial Williamsburg even provides information about it on its Web site and includes it in special tour packages.

That hasn't been the case for Newman's proposed 11-acre, $17.6 million park, which would house 18- foot sculptures of all 41 United States presidents in a garden setting.

This time around, CW has taken a disdainful posture, calling Newman's project a sideshow that would taint the area's character. And York County officials have taken the position that the proposal is an amusement park, not a museum, and thus requires a special use permit that they may not be inclined to grant.

Newman, worried about the direction things were taking, has turned to the courts for relief. He wants the park declared an outdoor museum, a designation that would negate the need for approval by supervisors.

Radar talked with Newman about the brouhaha his project has caused, and how he feels about it.

Here are excerpts from that interview:

RADAR. How did you come up with this concept?

NEWMAN. I didn't do it. The amazing story, I think, is David Adickes. He's the artist, the sculptor. He did an 8-foot bronze of George Bush when he was president of the United States. And once he finished that, he got interested in presidents, and he went to Mount Rushmore and saw the busts there. And he said, "That's too distant. You have to look at them through binoculars." And he said, "I'm going to come back and do something up close and personal of the U.S. presidents. And I'm not going to just do four or five. I'm going to do all 41." So he hired 15 to 25 men, working five to six days a week for five years, and built the largest busts the United States has ever produced besides Mount Rushmore. When he started that process he was 68. I mean, what a story.

RADAR. So how did you get involved?

NEWMAN. Jim Noel of the York County IDA brought him into my office because I had developed Water Country. He introduced me to David Adickes and he thought maybe I could help develop something for York County.

RADAR. Have you been surprised at the reaction?

NEWMAN. Oh, definitely. Absolutely. I didn't get this much reaction when I was doing Water Country.

The bottom line, in my view, is that we have an internationally known artist with a couple of letters of recommendation from George Bush, who has seen all the statues - and one of them is of him; you'd think that would mean something. The artist has had a book written about him by the noted author James Michener. And then we have the U.S. presidents that meet the Virginia Standards of Learning to educate our children. We have a patriotic park in a garden setting buffered from all of the surrounding public view. I'm just amazed that anyone would complain about that.

RADAR. Why do you think Colonial Williamsburg has such fervent objections to this?

NEWMAN. I can't speak for them. I can guess, and my guess is that it's economics. Apparently, they have a thinking that there's just a cup of tourists that come into the area and anybody that's here divides that amount, they split that up. But that is not what's happening, and that's not what's happening around the rest of the country. What happens is that the more attractions you have in an area, the more people you draw. And CW itself has a promotion - its Revolutionary Fun Pack - along with Busch Gardens and Water Country and the Jamestown- Yorktown Foundation, because if there are five things to promote, there is more reason for people to come to this area. So their posture, to me, undermines the foundation of what they're promoting. We had hoped that one day, there would be six things for people to do in this area. So I think it's economics that's driving it.

What surprised me is that I am not aware that CW has a plan to pay tribute to or educate our children about presidents John Tyler, Abraham Lincoln, U.S. Grant or Woodrow Wilson or Jack Kennedy or Ronald Reagan or all the other presidents outside of CW's scope of interest. And I just couldn't believe that they would have objections to somebody else supplying that experience and education, particularly when it will meet the Virginia Standards of Learning.

RADAR. You mentioned that former President Bush has praised the project. What kind of feedback have you gotten locally?